


About Time

by MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Albion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Arthur - Freeform, Avalon - Freeform, Camelot, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Guinevere - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, King - Freeform, Merlin - Freeform, Modern Era, Queen - Freeform, Reincarnation, Royalty, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 07:42:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17556173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays/pseuds/MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays
Summary: It’s 2019. All that’s left of Albion is Merlin.And right now, his need is greatest.





	About Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is so fucking self indulgent lol

Merlin had built a bench.

 

Hundreds of years ago, he’d cut down a pine tree and fashioned a small bench out of it. It was simple, just a few wooden slats held together by large and rusted nails, but it was all his handiwork. By now, he had no idea how many hours, days, weeks,  _months_ he’d spent on that bench, waiting.

 

Waiting for Arthur.

 

For centuries he’d held out hope, watching over the Lakes of Avalon for the slightest ripple in the water. A single wave would send him running.

 

As time went on he visited less. Started to lose hope in Kilgarrah’s words, thought that maybe his prophecy had been wrong. A few times he doubted his own memory, convincing himself that the dragon had never even said the words he held onto for so many lifetimes. Through Gwen’s reign, her death, Camelot’s rise and fall. Through the renessiance, the colonies, and all the way up to modern day.

 

And if the years had skewed his perception of time so that his visits slowed down to barely once a year or so, who would know? Who would care?

 

And only at the lake, on the bench, could he drop Dragoon. Only then could he be Merlin. Sometimes he spoke, whispered his fears and joys and memories to the mist that rose from the waters. Sometimes he drew, a pass time he’d taken on to survive the waiting. Today, though, he just watched. He watched the stillest waters with a keen eye, one only magic could hone.

 

Merlin promised himself that this would be his final visit. It had been exactly one thousand, five hundred years since the worst day of his life. He said he’d give up after that long. Finally let himself die. Finally sleep.

 

So he sat, waiting, all through he night. His eyes never once dropped closed. They focused on the glassy surface and the moon’s reflection as it rose, arched over the sky, and began to sink back down.

 

He was counting down the minutes. He needed to leave.

 

He needed to leave.

 

He needed to  _leave_.

 

But he felt like something was drawing him in, rooting him to the spot like the first time he visited, when he stayed for a week straight.

 

And then his aching eyes saw movement.

 

Right in the center of the lake, something rippled. Merlin’s eyes widened further than he thought they could, because  _that lake hadn’t moved in fifteen centuries_.

 

Something started to rise, a dome silhouetted by the moon and rising sun. A head. A neck. Shoulders. Chain mail.

 

Merlin stood, disbelieving. Afraid to believe. To hope.

 

The figure waded closer. A shoulder plate gleamed, dripping with water. A confused face seemed unfazed by how flooded it was. Locks of blond hair still so familiar even after so many years and so much water.

 

”Arthur?”

 

Arthur looked around, and Merlin realized he’d only whispered Arthur’s name, like a promise or a prayer.

 

”Arthur!” He called, stumbling towards the silver shores. “Arthur!”

 

Arthur finally looked up, his eyebrows furrowed and his hands limp at his sides, dangling at the surface of the water. “Merlin?” He asked, bewildered.

 

Arthur’s eyes widened in recognition and he began running through the water, clumsily tripping over his own feet until he was standing in the shallows.

 

By now, tears were shining in the moonlight, contrasting against Merlin’s pale face. And yet he was smiling for the first time since the Saxons invaded. “It took you long enough,” he laughed wetly. Now Merlin could see, Arthur looked just the same. The chain mail, sword, and stupid blue eyes threw him back into Camelot, almost against his will, but he let them.

 

”What just happened?” Arthur asked indignantly, violently rubbing his eyes and taking in his surroundings. “And...why are you dressed like that?”

 

Merlin gave a wet chuckle, looking down at his jeans and plain t-shirt. He certainly didn’t look like a midevial servant. “I’ll explain it later,” he replied. “I just...”

 

Merlin trailed off with a light sob, feeling the weight of all the years alone pressing harder than ever. 

 

Arthur stared at him quizzically, concern shining on his face. He placed a gloved hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “Merlin, are you alright?”

 

Merlin nodded, but tears dripped down his weathered cheeks all the same. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

 

Arthur seemed to agree, flashing that lopsided grin that Merlin knew all too well and wished Guinevere was here to see. “Merlin, neither did I! I thought I was done for, but I suppose you were right. The lakes healed me completely. Look,” he gestured to his clean, clear chest. “No wound! I’m alive!”

 

Merlin shook his head weakly, sniffing. “No, Arthur,” he whispered. “You were dead. You were  _gone_.” 

 

Arthur’s grin faded as a mix of confusion and cold fear crossed his face. “What?”

 

Ignoring him, Merlin continued, “God, I’ve been alone for so  _long_. I didn’t think you’d ever come back. I’d lost hope.” He was wracked with sobs now, ragged, raw despair pouring from his voice.

 

”Merlin,” Arthur asked warily. “Where am I?” And God, Arthur may have been oblivious but he wasn’t stupid, he knew something was up, and how was Merlin supposed to answer? How was he supposed to explain to Arthur that everyone he loved was dead, his dear kingdom had fallen a millennia ago, and not a single aspect of the world was the same?

 

Merlin looked down at his shoes and muttered, “Avalon.”

 

”Merlin—“

 

”Avalon. Two-thousand and nineteen.”

 

Marlen dared to look up, expecting crushing grief to paint Arthur’s features, but he was...laughing? Yes, Arthur laughed as if all was right in the world. “Yeah, Merlin,” he joked. “I’ve been dead for centuries. Come on, you absolute girl, where am I?”

 

”Avalon,” Merlin repeated, his voice harder this time. “Two-thousand and nineteen.”

 

”No,” Arthur laughed. Merlin stared at him, pity distorting his features. “No, he repeated, barely a whisper, his hands dropping to his sides weakly. “No, no, what? How can it—what?”

 

Merlin could see the panic course through Arthur’s veins, flooding him with ice. He watched his face fall and his shoulders drop, weighed down with his wet armor and his realization alike.

 

”Yes, Arthur,” Merlin assured. “You’ve been dead for fifteen centuries.”

 

”No. No, Guinevere—“

 

”—Is dead,” he interrupted. “She was a great queen, but died about thirty years after you did. A fever took her quickly. I was there the whole way.”

 

Greif. Pain. Loss. Crushing.

 

”It can’t be...the knights—“

 

”—Died fighting for Camelot.”

 

”...Percival? Leon?”

 

God, he sounded so broken, a shell of the boisterous young king. Merlin supposed he couldn’t blame him; he wasn’t who he used to be, either. “They were the last two. They fought until the end, and I assure you, they died with honor.” Merlin was surprised with how easily he slipped back into his older tongue, using outdated phrases in the presence of his king.

 

Arthur seemed to deflate, eyes staring at nothing. Merlin caught him before he could collapse to the ground, and draping his arm around his own shoulders, said gingerly. “Come, sire. You need rest. You can sleep in my house tonight.”

 

Arthur nodded, but he wasn’t there, not really. 

 

“Alright,” He said to himself.

 

Merlin fitted his shoulder to the armor and for just a moment fell back to Camelot, where the sun shone on him as he helped Arthur out of his chest plate after training, ready to go and polish swords or gather herbs for Gauis, who was not long for the world after Arthur went.

 

He made his way to the nearest path, avoiding the highways to keep Arthur from getting overwhelmed, and wondered how he would handle what was to come.

 

The Sun began to rise, and it didn’t care if it was five hundred or two thousand. It survived everything that happened as if it were nothing, and so could Merlin.

 

The Moon went down. The stars winked out. And a king and his servant wept alone in a tiny flat, pretending just for a moment that it were a palace.

**Author's Note:**

> Might make a follow up where Merlin introduces Arthur to new technology. Might not. Let me know


End file.
